Roles of polyurethane foam in aerobic moving and fixed bed bioreactors

The aim of this study was to investigate the performance of sponge as an active mobile carrier for attached growth biomass in three typical types of aerobic bioreactors to treat a high strength synthetic wastewater. The results show that sponge thickness deteriorated the organic and nutrient removal and 1 cm is the optimum thickness for fixed-bed sponge biofilter (SBF). The sponge volume had significant impact on phosphorus removal rather than organic or nitrogen removal, and 20% volume of sponge could achieve 100% T-P removal within 3 h in a sponge batch reactor (SBR). When sponge coupled with submerged membrane bioreactor (SMBR), the single system show outstanding ammonium (100% at filtration flux of 10 and 15 L/m(2) h) and phosphorus (>91% at all fluxes range) removal with optimum pH range of 6-7. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.